Continue reading iPhone 3G S review
Filed under: Cellphones
iPhone 3G S review originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Filed under: Displays
LG 15-inch OLED TV on sale in December originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 17 Jun 2009 06:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsRT @bmorrissey - Digg advertising: users vote up and down ads (more dugg ads pay less per click) -- awesome - http://ping.fm/hKnz1
We've previously covered services like TextPayMe (since bought by Amazon) and PayPalMobile that let you make purchases using your cell phone. Today we see another called Boku, a mobile payment service designed to make getting your virtual goods easy.
Admittedly, the market for virtual goods is larger abroad than here in the United States (though that may change in the future, see Mafia Wars), but the service—available in over 50 countries—is useful for those looking to buy virtual goods on Facebook, hi5, and other social sites.
To use it, click the "Pay by Mobile" button that's listed on the web site, punch in in your cell phone number, and reply "Y" to the text message confirmation. The purchase will then be added to your cell phone bill. No credit card information or registration is required, and the service works for both monthly cell phone and pre-paid subscribers.
The Boku site lists compatible carriers for each country (in the U.S, for example, the service works with Alltel
AT&T, Cellular One, Sprint/Nextel/Boost, T-Mobile, US Cellular, Verizon, and Virgin), though you should make sure to ask what, if any, additional charges your carrier may apply for using the service.
Check out the above demo for a rundown or browse the Boku site for more information.
In the wake of their buyout by Oracle, Sun Microsystems has canned their 16-core Rock chip project—once touted by the company as a "game changer," and their answer to IBM's latest Power CPUs—after five years of development. This represents the second major chip offering from Sun to be shelved in recent years. [NYT]
Rob Cockerham at PopSci got to see it in action, and took a few photographs of this mighty—and extremely useful—sploshing megalomaniac dream machine. [Popsci]
UPDATE: The app has been released—and it's free. [iTunes and Kevin Rose via Digg]
So here's how this works: the Active X applet hijacks your webcam and uses face/eye detection to figure out where to plaster Prime's face. Once it figures that out, it renders a 3D head around your own mug, allowing you live vicariously through the leader of the autobots. But if you get too zealous in trying to save the world, the helmet will disappear—vigorous head movement angers the Autobot gods, and they will steal the head of Prime from you (along with the Matrix of Leadership).
The best part about this taking place in augmented reality is that you don't have to figure out a way to behead a 30-foot robot. Plus, you won't get motor oil (not to mention any other fluids and lubricants he has running through his system) all over your shit. [We Are Autobots]
Multicore processors in mobile devices are only a matter of time, and that time appears to be coming closer for ARM, as their Cortex A9 chips will ship in phones in 2010. Arm chips are found in various handsets, including all three generations of the iPhone. [CNET]
Samsung's Galaxy is a 11.9 millimeter-slim handset that features a 3.2-inch AMOLED touchscreen and 5-megapixel camera, and also comes equipped with GPS, Wi-Fi and and WCDMA support. Even more, the phone calls attention to the haptic feedback on its virtual keyboard, which is a first for a major touchscreen smartphone.
Because the AMOLED screen reportedly draws less power than the iPhone's TFT-LCD screens do, the Galaxy apparently has a longer battery life, making this—coupled with the haptic feedback—more mainstream-consumer friendly for those who have yet to purchase a smartphone. Although pricing and release dates are not finalized, the Galaxy will supposedly be available in Europe by the end of this month, and the rest of the world in the second half of 2009. [PC World via Talk Android]
The inner ear is able to take in all the noise in a surrounding area, and adapt how it processes the sound accordingly. Gizmag says that in a similar fashion, the RF Cochlea is able to analyze a wide range of frequencies, and maximize how it routes data for maximum bandwidth and minimal power consumption. In testing, these designs have been faster than anything they've ever seen before.
What this means for the rest of us is the development of faster, smarter radios for signals such as television channels, cellphones, wi-fi, etc... These "smart radios" could not only take unused bandwidth from one application and put it to work in another, but they could also learn to avoid certain frequencies based on the radio waves in their current location. The end result would be stronger, clearer wireless signals.
The researchers also think it would be possible to commercialize this technology within a couple of years, if someone was so motivated. I like that. [Gizmag]
As we explained in our Giz Explains: Low-Power Chipsets, Nvidia's Tegra proc is designed to handle high-def video and Flash with buttery smoothness in small packages, just like the Zune HD. So while this is as yet still unconfirmed, given that we haven't had confirmation from Microsoft, it makes a lot of sense and would actually be a very smart move—and the sources reporting the rumor seem very certain that it's true. With a Tegra processor, the Zune HD would certainly be able to decode videos with far less necessary power than with any other chipset, which means better battery life combined with better video quality. What else could you want from a next-gen PMP? [PC Perspective]
Laptop Mag took a gander at Toshiba's NB205 netbook and found an awful lot to be happy about. The netbook, which boasts the same specs as every other 10-inch netbook out there (1.66GHz Atom, 160GB hard drive, 1GB RAM, Windows XP) seems to really bring it in the non-component hardware department, with a stellar keyboard and thankfully normal-human-sized trackpad along with an LED-backlit display and, of course, that crazy 6-cell battery. They managed to eke out 8 hours and 33 minutes of real time battery life, which means continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi. That's far and away the best battery life we've seen on this category of netbook, and with its above-average performance, it definitely looks like a mini-laptop worth your attention if you're in the market for a 10-incher. [Laptop Mag]
Continue reading VuNow's internet video-to-TV streamer finds a home in Sherwood receivers
Filed under: Home Entertainment
VuNow's internet video-to-TV streamer finds a home in Sherwood receivers originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Jun 2009 17:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Filed under: Laptops
Disney and ASUS announce Netpal netbook for kids originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Jun 2009 17:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsRoss Rubin (@rossrubin) contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.
Despite powering only a handful of handsets available on the market, Android has already had a significant impact on the competitive landscape in smartphones. Looking at its primary rivals that run on a variety of hardware from multiple manufacturers, Android has provided a free and highly customizable licensed challenge to Windows Mobile, And competition with the Google-developed mobile operating system may have also provided the final push of Symbian into the world of open source.
Just because Android has turned the tables, though, does not mean it should be used on devices that rest on them. Recently, the infatuation with Android has led to much speculation and supplication regarding the operating system as an alternative on netbooks and less proven "gaptops" that live between the smartphone and the notebook. But while blazing benchmarks may erase any speed records set by netbooks running Windows, they can't erase what amounts to a weak case for Android on these devices.
Recent history shows that the overwhelming majority of consumers want Windows on their netbooks. This has become especially true as the market has shifted from the quasi-appliance like original Asus Eee, with its suboptimal 7" screen, to most netbooks running 10" and now even larger screens and vendors such as Dell and HP that are pillars of the Windows hardware world have grabbed market share. Even these manufacturers have more to gain by going with their own twist on Linux. HP, for example, has created a unique and differentiated experience with its Linux environment for netbooks. It will take some time before various Android implementations are so unique. It's unclear why an Android-based netbook would fare much better than Linux-based netbooks have.
Continue reading Switched On: When netbooks suffer from 'Droid rage
Filed under: Laptops
Switched On: When netbooks suffer from 'Droid rage originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Jun 2009 18:13:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Continue reading Tegra might power Zune HD, definitely does augmented zombie reality
Filed under: Cellphones
Tegra might power Zune HD, definitely does augmented zombie reality originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Jun 2009 22:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Filed under: Handhelds
Amazon puts code where its mouth is: releases Kindle source to the world originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 17 Jun 2009 01:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Filed under: Laptops
3G-equipped Acer Aspire One 531 netbook hits the US originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Jun 2009 15:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Filed under: Laptops
BenQ gets its AMD Yukon kicks with the Joybook Lite T131 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Jun 2009 10:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Filed under: Cellphones
Huawei U8230 Android phone officially launched at CommunicAsia originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Jun 2009 11:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Filed under: Cellphones, GPS
Garmin-Asus G60 slated for August launch, will be last non-Android Linux phone for the couple originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Jun 2009 08:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Filed under: Storage
Western Digital recants, announces its SiliconDrive III range of SSDs originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Jun 2009 09:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Commentssource: http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=5dea996dba16776ec4a6403ce9e11bcf
source: http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=MnV1vmJa3hGCqJ70PW7D0g
The concept is somewhere between a personal web server and a filesharing application, technologically and conceptually. The interface is straighforward, divided into panels for each service that you choose to "host." All of them behave in the same stupid-simple way: you start a service, whether it be photo sharing, music streaming, web hosting, or straight file sharing, select a shared directory, set your privacy preferences and go. There are also hosted chat services, and "Fridge," which is a—you guessed it—hosted quasi-Facebook wall, for other Opera users to drop notes on.
Even at this early stage you can find a lot of hosted content to explore, including plenty of publicly streamable music, which will almost certainly cause Opera problems even though, strictly speaking, they're not actually doing the streaming. There's no video service for now, but Unite is extensible, meaning that anyone can design a plugin to add to the program's default file-serving capabilities.
Opera is proud of the fact that Unite runs against the tide of most new web services, opting for client-side content hosting over cloud-based solutions—so proud, in fact, that th! ey're ab le to repeatedly, straight-facedly describe Unite as a "Web 5.0" product, which is a bit rich considering it is just a collection of services that have been available for years, albeit never in such a simple or consolidated way. As a convenient tool for sharing large amounts of content, I get it. As a game-changer? I'm not so sure.
Of course, you might, so just try it out: a technical preview of Opera Unite is available for download here. [Opera]
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheDieline/~3/YzWeYXvIPkI/peard.html
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/16/opera-unite-a-cloud-based-promise-to-reinvent-the-web-again/
Continue reading Opera Unite: a cloud-based promise to 'reinvent the web,' again
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
Opera Unite: a cloud-based promise to 'reinvent the web,' again originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Jun 2009 03:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | CommentsSource: http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/16/arm-promises-dual-core-cortex-a9-based-smartphones-next-year/
Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds
ARM promises dual-core Cortex A9-based smartphones next year originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Jun 2009 05:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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